Fear of cancer undermining cancer screening

As more and more people are diagnosed with cancer, more research on it is also being undertaken. One recent research suggests that the fear of a cancer diagnosis is leading to less ethnic minority women in the United kingdom going for cancer tests. In  research article Cancer fear and fatalism among ethnic minority women in the UK. British Journal of Cancer. 2016, L Vrinten et al discovered that women from ethnic minorities in the UK are more likely to believe being diagnosed with cancer was “fate” and that their condition is incurable. The research  included a cross-sectional survey of 720 White British, Caribbean, African, Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi women (120 of each). The researchers gathered from the research that an undue fear of cancer could cost women their lives if it means avoiding screening or seeing medical professionals with symptoms.

" White British women believed that cancer was incurable, but a significant proportion of BAME women endorsed this belief, regardless of acculturation and general fatalism, raising questions about the origins of this belief. "

 Regardless of the origins of this belief, their findings suggest that messages about increased cancer survival are not reaching all BAME women, which was also reflected by the large proportion of women who were excluded from the sensitivity analyses because they were ‘not sure’ about whether cancer is curable (15–34%). It is likely that the belief that cancer is incurable influences BAME women’s engagement with cancer awareness campaigns and early detection services. If so, it is important that these disparities are addressed.Examining the effects of these ethnic differences in fear and fatalism on early detection of cancer and screening uptake in specific ethnic groups could help inform more targeted campaigns.

British Journal of Cancer (2016) 114, 597–604. doi:10.1038/bjc.2016.15 www.bjcancer.com
Published online 11 February 2016

Cancer fear and fatalism among ethnic minority women in the United Kingdom

Charlotte Vrinten¹, Jane Wardle^1, and Laura AV Marlow¹

 ^{http://www.nature.com/bjc/journal/v114/n5/full/bjc201615a.html}